Archive

BY ALAN OSBORN
MAYBE not all of us would know the difference if we got served

bootleg vodka instead of Smirnoff in a pub, but make no mistake – this is happening on a wide scale and it amounts to a rip-off that is cheating drinkers of millions of dollars a year.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
EUROPE, in wine terms, has pedigree. It is, after all, the home of the longest established commercial wine-making tradition. But these days, its primacy is being challenged by colonial upstarts, in the shape of New World vineyards, and guess what; the new kids on the block seem to be ganging up on the oldsters.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
SLEEMAN Breweries of Canada has announced that it has signed a five-year deal with South African Breweries, which allows for Sleeman to sell, market and distribute SAB’s Pilsner Urquell brand in Canada.

The agreement could help pave the way for Sleeman breaking into the US market, as the Canadians have been allowed to sit in on talks SAB are currently having with potential US partners.…

Keith Nuthall
ITALY has announced that it is to join a growing band of European Union countries that want to grant special national aid for the distillation of excess wine stocks, in the teeth of opposition from the European Commission. It wants Member States to abide by the new common market organisation, which was designed to limit such production subsidies.…

BY KATE REW
BELGIUM’S most internationally famous beer, Stella Artois will be available for the first time in the west of the United States, when it goes on sale in Denver, Colorado, this month.

Although it has been available in other eastern states since 1999, the company now plans to expand westwards to new US markets, including Los Angeles, San Francisco and Las Vegas later this year.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has expressed concern at the growing number of requests from EU wine-producing countries for permission to grant national distillation aid to growers. Franz Fischler, EU agriculture commissioner for wine, said it was “quite worrying” that member states were seeking to grant “pure operating aids which do not bring about any structural improvement.”…

KEITH NUTHALL
INDIA has launched formal talks at the World Trade Organisation over the imposition by Brazil of anti-dumping duties on its exports of jute bags, which New Delhi claims were erected in contravention of WTO rules.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE RIGHTS of clothing retailers to sell re-exported products, against the wish of a manufacturer, are likely to be strengthened by an oncoming European Court of Justice ruling on parallel trading.

In a preliminary legal opinion, ECJ advocate general Stix-Hackl said that the right of a trade-mark holder to “control the initial distribution of goods within the European Economic Area,” (the EU, plus Norway and Iceland), was “not unlimited.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union has lifted all quotas on imports of clothing products from Ukraine, following confirmation that Ukraine has lowered its tariff levels for EU textile exports, as agreed last year.

Brussels has also removed restrictive textile quotas for Sri Lankan clothing exports.…

KEITH NUTHALL
A DEAL whereby Shell Erneuerbare Energien GmbH will acquire joint control of an existing solar energy joint venture between Siemens AG and E.ONEnergie AG has been cleared by the European Commission, which has concluded that the deal will not harm competition in the sector.…